


Word of the Day

by 13ways



Category: One Direction
Genre: 1dpromptchallenges, Drabble, M/M, Wordcount: 100
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-08-20 00:42:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20218966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/13ways/pseuds/13ways
Summary: I’ve been writing short stories for the1dpromptchallenges.These are 100 word per prompt drabbles. Brain droppings at the end of empire!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Each prompt gets 100 words.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Words of the day were [COMEUPPANCE, INEFFABLE, AQUIVER, DENOUEMENT](https://13ways-of-looking.tumblr.com/post/186921257721/a-short-story-on-four-words-from).  
Louis

As he loved him. As he watched the slim, broadcloth shirt billow out when he took a breath to sing, as his eyes glimmered with a flush of excitement when he heard his voice, as they walked past each other nearly touching skin. As he waited for him to tell the joke he’d practiced in the dressing room, voice harsh with late adolescence and shoulders aching to broaden, thighs warm where their jeans touched, a rush of blood to their cheeks when the stylist came in and saw them, **comeuppance** like an inside joke, time sly and improbable.

As he loved him day by day, as he trained his face to be still, his eyes to stay neutral, eyebrows to be flat and calm even as they were tattooed onto his chest, sparrows in flight, even as days turned into months and the thrill of a hidden romance took on the anxiety of impatience, delirium of anger, took on an **ineffable** panic because what if… what if… what if… As night transformed into the palest dawn, rubbing his eyes from lack of sleep, so he told himself, insomnia and excitement and worry. As he loved him.

There was a party. Another party. Celebrities and crowds and smiles, handshakes and photographs and promises. Performances on television, on famous stages with the ghosts of names that set the young boys’ hearts **aquiver**. Their signed photos hung in the hallways, blown up on canvases, their album covers like religious talismans. As he loved him, he saw him go away at night with models and rock stars in chauffeured cars, with famous friends. He stopped eating, wandered off at night, smoked one cigarette after another, burning his soul into the air. He put his faith and humor in a bear.

They wanted to buy his pride. He mulled over the offer, and knew how easy it would be. He saw cruelty and kindness, cruelty dressed as kindness, in so many complicated layers that it was like fancy food he no longer understood. Money, a trail of fans, thousands of retweets and likes, a house with an ocean view. And it was as if the universe decided he was the one, he would be the hero. Noise swirled around him, enigma, tragedy. Love would not be heartbreak. As he loved, his love made him the beloved. Not a **denouement**. A beginning.

Come visit on [tumblr.](https://13ways-of-looking.tumblr.com/post/186921257721/a-short-story-on-four-words-from)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Word of the Day: [PERSNICKETY](https://13ways-of-looking.tumblr.com/post/186774481501/word-of-the-day-persnickety-p%C9%99r-%CB%88sni-k%C9%99-t%C4%93-part).   
Louis and Harry

“And secondly,” Louis says, tapping on Harry’s middle finger.

They’re sitting in the middle of a live interview, all talking over each other. Louis has grabbed Harry’s wrist and pinned it in the air, a goshawk and his rabbit kit. His thumb is on Harry’s pulse. Harry’s striving to stare straight ahead.

“Secondly,” Louis repeats, fingers joining Harry’s, “we’d never be the types to trash a place and leave.”

“Since when?” the interviewer asks.

Louis wonders how he turned into a **persnickety** douche who says, “Secondly.”

He winks at Harry. “Since our mums taught us to pick up after ourselves.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Word of the Day: APOTHEOSIS  
The Greek letters spell “Hubris.”  
Harry.

A biped in a tin can, six miles above ground.

Sixty-five hundred miles in four days. If the ancient Greeks could pluck him out of the air, they would offer Harry to the gods, the chorus chanting ὕβρις until he is torn apart.

He passes billboards of himself in the airport corridor where Harry, perfumed, is sacrificed to the new god of aerial photography.

By the hotel pool, he dons sunglasses and headphones, looks at the cloudless Yucatán skies and feels hot. Some fevers can’t be cooled by tequila, no matter how smooth. Apollo burned. Achilles fell.

**Apotheosis** sucks sometimes.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Word of the Day: [SCINTILLATE](https://13ways-of-looking.tumblr.com/post/186933352301/word-of-the-day-scintillate-sin-t%C9%99-%CB%8Cl%C4%81t-part-of).  
Harry

The room kicks to life when he walks in. The room is the world, the world is everyone, everywhere.

He catches flowers, signs books, balls up rainbow flags to store backstage.

Drinks plain water in the morning, eats toast with a pat of butter and fresh mangos. Whatever he touches, sparkles. Fruit is sweeter, the sky bluer. Rain filmier. Fog more palpable. Comics funnier, stars brighter, the blues lonelier, and lemon zest, zestier.

The rose petals on the catwalks have nothing on him. His name **scintillates**, shines brighter than a spotlight.

Like fireworks, what doesn’t explode is also deeper, darker.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Word of the Day: [GIBBOUS](https://13ways-of-looking.tumblr.com/post/186723544376/word-of-the-day-gibbous-gi-b%C9%99s-part-of-speech).  
Louis. [1883 magazine cover](https://www.instagram.com/p/BzgPolQgCkT/?hl=en%E2%80%9D%20rel=).

A target on his chest, Louis leans forward in the throne carved from hundred-year-old walnut.

The wood has been polished to a sheen. Even now, it is changing, air breaking down the cellulose walls and kissing the fibers dry. Even now, the curtain behind Louis sways, its glory in decline, the pinks of youth turning to mauve.

Even now, the **gibbous** moon wanes, fading to half, then slimming to a scalpel-like crescent.

Even now, though his heart beats the same, love is transforming, the visible silver fading to dark blue, to negation, even as it vanishes and waits to glow.


	6. Miasma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Word of the Day is [MIASMA](https://13ways-of-looking.tumblr.com/post/187100616091/word-of-the-day-miasma-m%C4%AB-%CB%88az-m%C9%99-part-of-speech).  
Louis.

She’s in the car with him at night. Especially if he’s driving on highways, if there’s thunder or fireworks, in the heavy rush of noise he hears her telling him to mind the curve, watch for the stray branch or tire scrap in the road. She asks him how his day went, whether he managed to tame his lyrics, scolds him for skipping meals. He’s _bones, _she says, _look at you, love._ In the darkness he feels all of eighteen, first time at Leeds and brass in pocket. Grief is a vast **miasma**. She is the lighthouse, the clarion call.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The prompt word today is [HALCYON](https://13ways-of-looking.tumblr.com/post/187215750471/word-of-the-day-halcyon-hal-s%C4%93-%C9%99n-part-of). This is a 100-word poem, from the perspective of our [brave little bear](https://annalarrie.tumblr.com/post/186545587778/sbb-is-proud).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [SashinaLash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SashinaLash) has written the best response to this poem. You can read it [here](https://sashinalash.tumblr.com/post/187218051626/word-of-the-day-halcyon-hal-s%C4%93-%C9%99n-part-of-speech), and now, on [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20372983/chapters/48316720).

** in the closet with sbb **

a jumper fell on me  
two years ago, but he didn’t see it  
pinpoint lights flash on and off  
the door’s always ajar 

pony’s next to me, button eyes shiny and wide   
_when?_ she asks,   
I say I don’t know  
we left the stadium for the last time in ‘15

happy in our blissful ignorance  
we had no idea  
that those were our **halcyon** days—  
the salad days 

our dress-up, cake-smearing days   
rock-n-roll, potato-mashing, cell-phone-texting  
birthday-celebrating, Judy-Garland, George-Michael, Faithful days  
Divine, cherry-wine, come-to-my-window days 

rbb’s behind me  
_when? _he asks  
_when, _I echo...  
when when


End file.
